


A Study in Superposition

by Falling Rain (fallingrain)



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Ep8 Spoilers, Gen, Gratuitious Use of Stock Phrases, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Magic Ending (Umineko no Naku Koro ni), Post-Canon, Trick Ending (Umineko)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingrain/pseuds/Falling%20Rain
Summary: What kind of world was behind the other door?The Ushiromiya Eagle never looks back, but it's the prerogative of an Endless Witch to look sideways, now and then.
Relationships: Mammon/Ushiromiya Ange
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	1. Summoning of the Final Witch

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about witches. As such, you can expect red and blue truths to appear. For best viewing, please enable Creator Style.

Decades later.

In international waters off the coast of Japan, a boat floated unmoored. Below decks, the passenger area had been converted into a makeshift study, strewn with papers and case-files and lukewarm cups of tea. There, pouring over the latest news for her next case to investigate, a lone figure could be seen.

Or was she alone?

They say that “without love, the truth cannot be seen.” That is, without being able to see things from multiple perspectives, an investigation is half-blind.

This person knew that, and so she had some assistance. She’d been taught well, after all, the techniques that accompany the name of Beatrice.

She had Erika’s tenacity at acquiring and applying brute facts.  
She had Will’s attention and care for the heart of things, the hearts of people.  
She had Mammon’s stubborn insistence that she continue to live for herself.  
And other furniture, too, if she chose to call them up.

ANGE-Beatrice, the Inescapable Witch of Truth.

Even now, hardly anyone knew that name; assumed identities were a more comfortable way to do her work. But her shadow - or rather, the shadow of “Gretel”, the anonymous exposé journalist - could be felt all across Japan, and indeed the world. Wherever there were wicked plots to be foiled, hateful secrets hidden under sanguine faces… there was a chance, and not a small one, that she’d be lurking around the corner, ready to expose them to the disinfecting light of day.

Or not, occasionally, when it suited her. Erika had chafed a bit, for instance, about letting Okonogi “get away with it”. But Mammon had approved, and now it was Gretel who held the trump card in that relationship - knowledge of Okonogi’s involvement in an attempted murder, and the evidence to prove it to the world. In the end, he had no choice but to accept her treaty terms. He got what he wanted: the Ushiromiya group stock. She got what she wanted: the freedom to do as she pleased, with the protection of Okonogi’s underworld contacts. And if he ever changed his mind about their arrangement, she would posthumously expose the truth of his double-dealing and ruin him in turn.

A handy arrangement. Not precisely the Golden Magic of her predecessors, but a near enough substitute when the need arose, letting her operate despite a lack of any human ties or authority.

In fact, other than Okonogi and his shady middleman, there was probably only one living human who knew that the being once called “Ushiromiya Ange” still existed: that author, “Hachijo Tohya” or whatever, who had tried that stunt of revealing Eva’s diary to the world before changing her mind at the last minute. Gretel knew, of course, that “Hachijo” was also that anonymous forgery writer who claimed to have solved the Ushiromiya massacre. It was a simple matter to deduce that the diary was her hidden source. It was also a simple matter to go to her publishing company and demand to read it. Even if Hachijo refused a face-to-face interview, she couldn’t refuse the last heir of Rokkenjima a chance to examine a family heirloom.

And Gretel could hardly call herself the rightful Witch of Truth if she was content to leave the contents of that book, the entrails of that day, to her imagination.

Her thoughts turned to that… long and winding side-trip she took, on her way to her new life. “Battler” - or rather, her memory of Battler, **who died in 1986** \- had offered her a choice, hadn’t he? A naive choice. An intellectual sleight-of-hand. Camus’s “philosophical suicide”, to substitute a literal one. But a choice nonetheless.

What kind of person might she be, Gretel wondered. What kind of Ushiromiya Ange, after all the guts had been spilled and the mysteries solved, would still have chosen to call “magic” what she understood to be a trick?

Would she even have survived? Or would she have destroyed herself, walking into the Sumaderas’ trap and rejoining her family in death on the shores of Rokkenjima?

* * *

October, that year. (A different calendar.)

Kotobuki Yukari, ANGE-Beatrice of Resurrection, sat in the great hall of the Fukuin House, as the clock struck half-past-eleven.

Ikuko was gone.  
Tohya was gone.  
The children? They had long since been sent to bed.

And yet around her, in her heart, in her mindscape, in that deep faith which senses what human senses cannot, she was surrounded by a raucous celebration.

Battler’s return.  
The revival of the Golden Land.  
All fates sealed and sins redeemed.

They had all travelled far to reach this moment. So as the festivities went on around her, Yukari was content to sit at the table, sip black tea, and reflect on the path that she had taken. Her thoughts turned back to the last time she had ‘seen’ her brother, before this reunion. He had offered her a choice, hadn’t he? A begrudging choice, but a choice nonetheless.

What kind of person might she be, Yukari wondered. What kind of Ushiromiya Ange, after reaching Beatrice’s heart and understanding how the tragedy that day came about, would still have been willing to see magic only as a “trick”?

Would she even have survived? Or would she have destroyed herself, throwing herself off a skyscraper in her search for someone to blame?

🙚🙦❦🙤🙘  
“Come. Close your eyes. Try to remember. What form did you have?”  
🙚🙦❦🙤🙘


	2. Confrontation of the Final Witch

Were it a human place, this room would surely be covered over with dust and crumbling with decay.

But Beatrice’s smoking-room is a meeting place for those who are not human, and so it looks the same as it always has, now that two witches are meeting there once more. The lights are lit, the table is set, and there’s even black tea steaming in the pot.

“Huh.” Gretel is the first to speak, circling her double as if to drink in every detail. “So you could ‘exist’ after all.”

Yukari cracks a smile. “I could say the same of you. This is one reunion I wasn’t expecting.”

“Why not?” Gretel answers. “After all, isn’t it the rule of witches? ‘If I stop thinking, I can die at any time.’ In other words, as long as I keep thinking...”

“...you have an eternity to live. _So you jumped after all?_ ”

“Better than living as a caged bird. Besides, the presence of the safety net was deducible from the available evidence, given time to work it out. Hardly the miracle that witch sold it as. What about you? How did you escape the Sumaderas with your ‘magic’?”

“Oh, I didn’t need magic for that. Shedding the Ushiromiya name and the cursed gold was enough.”

Gretel stops circling, and gives her double an appraising look. “So you never had to deal with... no, no, of course not. You asked me about the jump. _You stopped there. You turned down Bernkastel’s offer entirely._ ”

Yukari nods. “There was nothing more I needed to know. On that day, a tragedy happened. There’s a likely culprit... but that culprit is dead. What would I stand to gain from investigating the details?”

Gretel gapes. “You don’t care? You didn’t even _bother_?”

“The Ushiromiya Eagle doesn’t look back.”

“Ushiromiya Ange died in 1998. You can’t hide behind that name.”

“Then why do _you_ care? If Ushiromiya Ange is dead, they’re not even your family. What did _you_ have to gain? Are you so thirsty to squeeze the red truth from a tragedy that you don’t care if their hearts are trampled in the process?”

“That’s backwards and you know it,” Gretel says, her eyes narrowing. “The heart is exactly why I had to look, and why _you_ had to if you want to call yourself the Witch of Resurrection. How can you hope to resurrect them if you can’t bear to know their sins?”

Yukari’s face falls. “But we do. We both already as good as knew who the culprit was before we went through the door.”

“No,” Gretel answers, “we both _suspected_. Bernkastel’s theater was fantasy. The Book of the One Truth was fantasy. Knox’s Second. Without evidence from the real world, you can’t trust that kind of suspicion. Or are you still stuck in that hospital room, blaming everything on Eva?”

“Then what do you call evidence like _Kyrie’s_ diary? It doesn’t matter if they did it... what matters is whether they _would have_ done it. That’s the kind of evidence that matters - the evidence about their hearts, not about whether they actually sinned or not.”

“Unless we were wrong, and there was someone else who was capable of it too. Someone who we wouldn’t normally suspect. You can’t deny the existence of undiscovered evidence, and you stopped before examining it all.”

“And you claim you examined it? That’s a Devil’s Proof. If you want to accuse me of a failed resurrection... if you want to accuse my Golden Land of being false...” Yukari’s voice trembles. “...then repeat it in red. Give me red that Bernkastel’s culprit was wrong, if you claim to know what’s in the _real_ Book of the One Truth.”

Gretel scowls and looks away. “I refuse. I refuse to allow you to stop thinking.”

Yukari nods, and the corner of her mouth curls into a mirthless smirk. “...sorry, but that’s check. If you wanted to jog my thinking, drawing blood would be the best way to do it. This isn’t about the Resurrection Magic at all. What’s your real problem?”

Gretel is silent for a moment. Then, in a low voice but speaking very carefully, Gretel says, “The Witch of Truth is the witch who has gazed upon the truth and survived. No, who has survived _because_ she was willing to gaze upon the truth.”

She looks up at Yukari, a tear in the corner of her eye. “That’s us,” she says, jabbing her finger at Yukari. “We both claimed that title. And that means we have a duty to acknowledge the whole truth that gave birth to us. Even if it’s painful.”

The two witches’ eyes meet.

No legion of furniture manifests. There are no magic shoulder towers, no legendary hammers or shields or blue-black swords. But the moment of tension that passes between them in that moment could hardly be heavier if they were standing on a battlefield with armies of demons at the ready.

And then Yukari exhales, and the tension vanishes.

“...I get it,” she says, giving a sad smile. “I understand now. ...That’s where we must have parted ways. You understood Beatrice’s magic, but called it a trick to honor the whole truth, even the ugly parts. I respect that, at least.”

“If you respect it, then why did you reject it?!”

“Because I understood the tricks, but called them magic so that she could rest in peace. So that she could have at least one person who knew those ugly truths, and still acknowledged her as the person she wanted to be. I wanted them all to have that chance... to be the best selves that they didn’t have a chance to be in life. Even Beatrice. And...” Yukari closes her eyes, feeling a tear come to her own eye too. “...even Mom.”

Gretel falls silent. Unsure how to reply, and suddenly feeling a deep fatigue that she hadn’t felt since... well, since that night in a Tokyo hotel all those years ago, she slumps into one of the chairs by the tea set. Yukari quickly follows suit, and if Gretel notices that Yukari’s legs are trembling, she doesn’t say so.


	3. Adventures of the Final Witch

For a time, Gretel and Yukari sit in silence - sipping tea, recuperating, and considering each other. This person, they find themselves thinking, may have chosen a different path for her new life. But she is, in the end, still recognizably _myself_. This is not the mere fool or villain that one might have first assumed. As always, love has revealed what would otherwise remain unseen.

Yukari breaks the silence first. “And yet.”

Gretel’s eyes dart up, wary.

“Despite saying all that...” Yukari continues, “I’ll admit it. I might still be the Witch of Truth, but it’s hardly my most prominent title now. But you... you’ve defended your name as Witch of Truth to the last. I wonder... have you taken up the mantle of ‘detective’, too?”

Gretel smirks, despite herself, and shakes her head. “Of course not. Why settle for being a piece on someone else’s gameboard? A detective is bound by the rules of humans. They investigate crimes ordained by humans, and then turn the results over to the police for arrest and prosecution. But we both know how dark a person’s sins can be without it being strictly criminal, and the police’s own sins are among them.”

She pauses, to take a sip of tea, and savor the fresh, hot brew. It was a far cry from the lukewarm cup at her desk, but the brand seemed to be the same one she always drank. What a coincidence.

“In contrast,” she continues, after a moment, “a witch creates her own rules, and moves the gamepieces herself. My investigations are made on nobody's authority but my own, and usually end in ‘voluntary’ repentance, whether under threat of the police, or of being thrown to the goats.”

“But not always?”

Gretel shrugs. “Sometimes they’re genuinely committed to their sins. And sometimes they don’t believe I can make good on my threats. I had one case, five or six years ago, involving the principal of a prestigious private school, who had used the power of his position to... well, take advantage of some of his students. Usually orphans, or those with broken families... those who had no-one outside his control to confide in or compare against.” Gretel scowls. “The man in question truly thought himself above consequence; he laughed in my face, at first, when I confronted him. But even if those victims had no families of their own to go to for help... simply having someone who believes in you, who will accept your word is the truth, is sometimes enough. And one of them let slip the missing clue that let me find hard physical evidence: years of photos, stuffed in a box in a derelict seminar building. So the press got their juicy scoop from ‘Gretel the Inescapable’, the culprit got a public disgrace and a lengthy prison sentence, and the victims now have a chance for the healing to begin.”

Yukari, who up until now had been listening with downcast eyes, looks up. “That child you mentioned... they wouldn’t happen to be named Suzuki Isamu?”

Gretel freezes. “How do you know Isamu?”

“Because for me, the adult who believed in him was one of the staff at Fukuin House. Mind you,” Yukari amends, noticing Gretel’s shock begin to shift to frustration, “your investigation certainly saved lives. It wasn’t until last year that Isamu’s grandmother passed away and he entered our care. But I’m happy to let you know that he’s been doing very well since then. He’s a brave child.” Yukari smiles. “He called me ‘auntie’ when I visited last month.”

“But... Fukuin House? I thought it had been shuttered ages ago.” _And good riddance,_ Gretel adds silently. Her investigations had long since made clear what an awful institution it had been, after all.

“It’s also part of our legacy as ANGE-Beatrice,” Yukari counters. “And if I was to choose a place to resurrect into a proper home for these children, where they can learn how to find a fragment of happiness...”

“...I get it. So this is your strategy for passing on Maria’s magic.”

“It’s one strategy among several. But it’s effective, and not just for the kids.” Yukari pauses for a moment, considering her words. “...for those who do that sort of work, seeing what they see, it’s easy to end up with a wounded heart. I think it helps them to know that their patron has also carried such a wound.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve told them about...”

Yukari shakes her head, vigorously. “Never. The key to the catbox will be buried with me. But I can still speak in generalities. Of losing a family, of living with anger and denial and regrets. There’s one nurse in particular, actually, who I’ve been talking with over the past few years. She lost her own family... a car went off an embankment, mother dead, father missing.” She winces. “You can guess what everyone said about the father.”

Gretel nods. “The same old story as always. A cliché ‘foul play’ motive, as if it wasn’t enough that she already had everyone taken from her.”

“Exactly. We had quite a bit to talk about at that point. She’s much younger, so she didn’t pick up on the Rokkenjima connection... just that we’ve both had our fill of goats. I think...” Yukari pauses, looking out the window of the smoking-room into the void beyond. “...I think she’ll make a fine successor. Someone has to be initiated into the deeper mysteries, after all, if the work of Mariage Sorciere is to continue. It would be a tragedy for _that_ to be locked up forever in the Golden Land when I finally go.”

“You know, I wonder about that,” Gretel says. “I’ve been doing some research on our magic, to better understand the principles behind it. Did you know that there’s an American researcher who published, all the way back in 1976, a book speculating that _everyone_ used to have furniture? Of course, he made a lot of questionable assumptions... as far as I know he never tried to summon any of his own, since he believed doing so would kill ‘him’. But even if the name of Beatrice comes to an end, her magic might just be rediscovered by some other person.”

“I wouldn’t be satisfied with that,” Yukari says. “I don’t think either of us would be. We both know the depths to which magic can be misused. The specific techniques... Golden, Endless, Resurrection... or even your Truth and... Inescapable, I gather? They’re all less important than the use to which we put them.”

“...you’re not wrong.” Gretel replies. “Speaking of which, that accident... it was ten years ago, in Gunma prefecture...” She pauses, letting Yukari's eyes widen as confirmation that her guess was right. “...and **he was innocent**. The car had been improperly serviced when it got an oil change earlier that week. The father wandered into the woods looking for help, and the police didn’t find his remains because they were so focused on their foul play theory that they assumed they’d find him alive.” Gretel shakes her head, remembering Will’s rage when they finally pieced that one together. “I bet his bones are still there, if anyone makes a thorough search.”

Yukari gapes. All this time, she had done the best she could with her own magic - the Endless, to leave behind the truth as irrelevant, and the Resurrection, to imagine them happy. But to think that she might be able to unlock her successor’s catbox directly...

“...it seems,” Gretel adds, after a moment, “that our lives are entwined more than either of us anticipated. In any case... my line of work is full of moments like these. Even if the truth of the past isn’t worth anything on its own, it can still be worthwhile if there’s a culprit to be undone, a tragedy to be prevented, or a victim to be comforted. That’s work that always needs doing. If anyone had been willing to face the truth head-on back in the eighties, maybe things would have gone differently. Maybe Ma...” And here Gretel’s voice hitches for just an instant.

“...maybe Maria would still be flesh and blood. If the memory of her means anything to me... it’s got to mean that, at least. And I trust that, if she had the chance, she’d acknowledge it. Not like her magic, not like Beatrice’s, but still a kind of magic in its own right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The “American researcher” Gretel references here is Julian Jaynes, and you can read about his theories [here](https://meltingasphalt.com/mr-jaynes-wild-ride/).


	4. Reverie of the Final Witch

Yukari, still somewhat at a loss for words, sips her tea, pondering what Gretel has told her. As awed as she is by Gretel’s magic, Yukari can’t help but recognize a certain undertone to her voice. It matches a certain type who she’d see sometimes at Fukuin House - the type who strive to find a fragment of happiness for others, but have somehow lost their own.

Putting her teacup back down, Yukari speaks up. “You say you trust what Maria would think. Why haven’t you asked her? Can’t you summon her anymore?”

Gretel glances down at her teacup. “I could, but I don’t. It’s one thing to call on my rightfully inherited furniture, or summon something from the Sea of Fragments. It’s another to rip someone out of the Golden Land who ought to be resting in peace.”

Yukari shakes her head. “...it’s useless, Gretel. You’re doing it again.”

“...doing what?”

“Trying to hide the relevant truth behind an irrelevant one, like you did when we first met. Too bad, but it won’t fool me this time.”

“Figures. I guess you’re still a Witch of Truth after all.” Gretel grits her teeth. “The truth is... it’s very hard to be an Inescapable Witch without dabbling in black magic. Even my resurrection ceremony shed its share of blood. I don’t regret it... but there’s still a part of me that’d be ashamed for her to see me now.”

“You must already know she won’t judge you.”

“But I will, and that’s what matters.”

Yukari pauses to think. “...well then. If you can’t bear to see her, then how about visiting her world? I’m sure it’d be more pleasant than your usual territory.”

“’Her world’?” Gretel gives Yukari a sharp look. “How would you have access to it? Wait. Don’t talk. Maria was a Creator Witch. If you’ve resurrected that much, you must already be at her rank. But you don’t write forgeries if you don’t look back anymore. So then what? You said earlier that you have ‘several strategies’ for propagating her teachings. This could be one of them. Non-fiction? No, you wouldn’t expose it to goats like that.

“ _...Fiction,_ ” she concludes. “ _Serial fiction; you’re a Creator who plans to create again, if you’re offering visits. A metaphorical story, for the kind of people - children, but sometimes adults too - who need to learn the hearts of Maria and Beatrice, the ‘magic’ of Mariage Sorciere, and the truth that lies beyond it._ ” She closes her eyes, a satisfied smile on her lips. “Just from the utterance of one phrase, see how far Gretel the Inescapable’s reasoning has taken her. What do you think, everyone?”

Before Yukari can respond, another voice yells out: “I think she’d better throw in royalties! She’d better not be suggesting that the great Gretel-sama appear in that game for free!”

With no visible transition, there is now a third figure - with waist-length golden hair, red eyes, and that ridiculous Stake of Purgatory uniform - standing in between Yukari and Gretel, pointing a finger at Yukari severely.

Mammon. Or, to be more precise, _Gretel’s_ Mammon, given her outburst and behavior.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Yukari replies, as smoothly as she can after the initial startle of Mammon’s appearance. “I’m sure there’s various causes to which I can lend my Golden Magic in exchange. The RSF, let’s say?”

“F-fine!” Mammon, expecting to be commanding this conversation, suddenly finds herself on the back foot instead. Perhaps it’s because this rival Witch of the Future bears such a resemblance to Mammon’s own master? “And this had better be a good story, too. Gretel-sama’s reputation is another one of her assets!”

Yukari closes her eyes. “Sakutarou, continuing on his journey, stops to stay the night in a strange town. There, he meets a cynical inquisitor, charged with rooting out injustice and black magic wherever it might hide. Finding themselves unable to leave in the morning, trapped in the town by a magic spell, they must cooperate to solve the town’s mystery, with the help of the inquisitor’s _beloved assistant_.” She opens her eyes and looks straight at Mammon. “Would that be a satisfactory pitch?”

“We— we’ll be in touch.” Mammon quickly demanifests to avoid blushing in front of company.

“‘Beloved assistant’?” Gretel asks, having watched this whole exchange with amusement.

Yukari shrugs. “While I assume from your deduction earlier that you also keep Erika on call, I somehow doubt you classify her as ‘beloved’. But two assistants, then.”

“You missed one,” says another, deeper voice. “Someone has to keep Erika’s uglier urges in check.”

“...I imagine.” So Will as well. “Three assistants... you’re lucky I don’t write honkaku mystery, or else you’d have to contend with Van Dine’s 9th.”

Gretel stifles a laugh. “I suppose I could make a guest appearance, for old times’ sake. And what about you? Were you planning to visit my fragment, to help me in my next case?”

Yukari closes her eyes. “Maybe not. But perhaps I can spare you a hint, as recompense for the one you gave me.”

“Knox’s Second,” Gretel responds, almost by reflex.

“Come now. Is this any more supernatural than your own investigative techniques?”

“Knox’s Sixth, then.”

“Then I’ll limit myself to a hint you already know.” Yukari smiles enigmatically, doing her best Ikuko impression. “How did Hachijo Tohya discover what happened that day?”

“Eva’s diary.” Surely that whole unsightly affair was public knowledge in Yukari’s fragment as well. Where is she going with this?

“And what did _Alliance of the Golden Witch_ know, that Eva did not?”

Gretel’s brow furrows. Back then, she had been focused on the guts of the mystery - on facing the awful truth head-on. Eva’s diary had answered those questions, so she’d closed the case and left Rokkenjima behind. ‘The truth belongs to living humans,’ and the human named Ushiromiya Ange died in 1998.

But Hachijo’s forgeries had also included references to Maria’s childhood, and to her furniture. To the rabbit band. To _Sakutarou_.

And if Eva had ever taken notice of such things as her idiot niece’s imaginary friends, she had certainly never bothered to write it down.

So if Hachijo had, after all, reached the truth by virtue of multiple points of view...

...if she has access to a _second_ source who knows what happened that day...

“...thank you.” Gretel replies, at last. “In that case... I had better get back to my work right away. Sorry for cutting this short, but you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“I understand. I could say the same of you. And when we start thinking...”

* * *

In two different stories, two different successors to the name of Beatrice shook off their reveries. One got up to mingle with her guests, and regale them with news of a surprise visitor to the night’s resurrection ceremony. The other went to search a dusty filing cabinet for a long-neglected folder labeled “Ushiromiya”. But on both witches’ lips were the conclusion of their parting words...

“...we’ll be revived again, no matter what.”


End file.
